I'm Not a Parent, But I've Learned A Lot About Being One!

This week was a very exciting (and very sugar-induced) week of Spring Celebrations! Even with all the exhilaration from those 4 days, my mind has been drifting in quite a different direction. The week was exhausting but not because of the sugar-high little bodies, Peeps science experiments, egg/spoon balancing game, or the egg hunt.

Much of my attention and brain power has been devoted to the variety of parenting styles I’ve come to observe in my room and how those styles influence the children of those parents. Being the logical, usually clear-minded person I am allows me to see why the children coming from certain parents act in particular ways. Most of the parents with which I come in contact have done a stellar job so far in raising their child, as I have observed over the past 2 months.  Children of these kinds of parents are not the ones I’m worried about… it’s the others. The children whose parents are blind to the little things they do that will hurt their child, either in the short-term or long-term.  The children coming from these families have inspired me deeply, not just as a teacher but as a woman who knows that she will one day be a mom.  (No, I’m NOT pregnant!) This week has got me thinking hard about what kind of parent I want to be alongside Tony.

Some Little Nuggets of Parenting Advice I’ve Gathered In Preschool:

• A child needs to have 2 parents that love them.  It takes a balanced, loving set of parents to raise a child.

• “Loving” your child means that you send your child to school with a winter coat when it is 25 degrees outside.  You are lazy and/or do not love your child if you send them in anything less.

• A teacher or day-care worker is with your child for 40 waking hours per week.  Wouldn’t it be a wise choice, as a parent, to give the highest respect to the person who is molding and taking care of your child for 40 hours per week?

• Talk to your child about their day, and actually listen to them! If they don’t give you an answer, find another way to ask them.  Don’t give up. Always keep the communication line open with your child.

• Do not assume your child is either an “angel” or “devil” child. Every child can do amazing feats, and every child misbehaves at times. That’s the definition of a child. How parents and teachers respond to the child’s actions is how the child learns.

• Parents need to acknowledge and praise their little one’s accomplishments, and make a big deal about it in a positive way.  On the opposite spectrum, appropriate consequences need to be done on-the-spot for unacceptable behaviors. They depend on us, as parents and teachers, to do this!

• For heaven’s sake, parents: spend time with your child! If your child’s teacher asks you what your kid likes to eat for breakfast, you BETTER come up with an answer. “I don’t know… he’s not a breakfast kid” is NOT an answer, and you need to spend more time with your child.

• READ. READ. READ. Can’t even begin to explain the hundreds of positive things you are giving to your child when you read with them every day.  So simple. Just do it.

I apologize if these bullet-points sound “rant-ish” or angry to you, as an audience. I could go on and on. I’m not angry, just (overly) passionate about wanting the best for the kiddos in my class.  Classroom teachers are not the only teachers in a child’s life. The adults at home are the other teachers, just in a different setting. All the passion that I have cannot make up for a lack of positive teaching at home for these innocent kids.  Parents, do your job. You have to be teachers too!

Whew...

Now, on a much lighter note, enjoy some of this week’s cutest little quotes!

Quotables

(drinking my coffee at breakfast table)

Little Girl: “Anne, why do your teeth look brown?”

(3 kids at table listening to “Snow White” book on tape)

3 Kids: (unison gasp) “They said the word ‘kiss!’”

Little Boy: “Ewwww!”

2 Little Girls: “Hehehehe”

3 Kids: (yelling across room) “Miss Anne!!! The word ‘kiss’ is in this book!”

(Our new afternoon assistant, Kate, is from Britain and has an accent. During her first afternoon with my class, a few of the girls were asking her questions.)

Little Girl: “Kate, I think I heard your voice before. I heard it in a movie or something.”

(Kate, reading the kids a springtime story in the afternoon)

Kate: (British accent) “…And the bunnies were jumping in the green, green grass…”

*wide-eyed kids all staring at her, totally entranced by her voice*

(waking the kids up from naptime)

Little Girl: (yawning and stretching) “Anne, I just had a dream about you! I dreamed that you and me were going on vacation, and we were going to Montana to see Grammy and Grampy and Uncle Jim!”